


Spitting Petals

by LizzyMay



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Hanahaki Disease, M/M, POV Pidge | Katie Holt, Past Relationship(s), klance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-12
Updated: 2018-11-12
Packaged: 2019-08-22 20:10:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16604699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LizzyMay/pseuds/LizzyMay
Summary: In which Keith totally doesn't have a potentially lethal disease relating to his ex, Pidge wishes she was better at first aid and Lance hasn't got a quiznaking clue.





	Spitting Petals

I awoke with a start sometime around midnight to the sound of someone’s airway giving up. The panicked gasps of air prematurely blocked off and the thump of something heavy hitting the floor was enough to have me tripping over my covers, scrabbling to get out of bed. 

I skidded onto the landing, my ears revolving on my head trying to locate the noise. It obviously was coming from the bathroom, and it could only be him. And obviously the idiot had the door locked. I raise my fists and slam them on the bathroom door. 

“Keith?! Keith?! Open the door!”

A violent retch tore its way from his throat, allowing him all of two seconds to breathe in before whatever was choking him took hold once again. I shook the handle, still locked. Keith’s breathing almost stopped completely before another painful retch spilled itself onto the floor. 

“Keith, move back from the door!” My plan was to kick the door down, but as soon as I raise my foot to boot the door to oblivion, a quiet click unlocked it. A brief moment of relief washed over me. I push open the door and stagger into the bathroom. 

“Keith, are you oka- what the fuck”

In the middle of the bathroom, curled up into a ball and sobbing, was Keith. He had his hands clasped tightly over his mouth, his eyes shut tightly with streams of tears staining his cheeks. His body shook as his airways closed off once again, forcing him up on all fours to desperately clear whatever was stuck inside. I didn’t know what else to do other than thump him on the back. I mean, saving people should be second nature to be but I’ve only seen this done on TV. I watch helplessly as he chokes, his face turning red and eyes almost bulging out of his head. Oh fuck, come on man think.

I put all my strength into a final slap, praying that this would work, square between the shoulder blades. Keith vomits onto the floor, the sounds making me feel sick as well. I turn away, it’s not the sight of it, just the sounds. I sit back against the bath tub, shutting my eyes as I listen to him breathe between bouts of vomit. At least he’s breathing. I can deal with vomit. At least he can breathe. 

That’s all that matters.

When I finally put my eyes back on him, he is pulling something out from his mouth. Whatever was choking him must have been quite small, since he had some trouble trying to get a grasp on it. He was almost sticking his fingers right in the back of his throat. Though what came out was far worse than I had anticipated.

I watch in horror as he pulls out a long, thick vine. A vine. Like a grape vine. Green with small leaves coming off and curling out from his mouth as he pulled. I had to be dreaming. I look away, only to notice what he had actually thrown up.

The floor was covered in flowers. All sizes and shapes and colours, almost as if he had eaten his way through an entire bouquet of flowers. Or at least four or five of them. Petals litters every inch of the floor, in white carnations, red tulips, purple lilies and yellow dahlias. There were so many flowers that even I couldn’t name. Some must be alien like, looking at the variety of spotty petals and stripy leaves. Lots of blue pansies and red roses, stem, spikes and all. It made me wonder what his throat must look like, but I didn’t have to guess long. In between the roses lay spots of blood, a stark contrast to the white tiled floor.

It was almost beautiful, if it had not just been spilling out from Keith’s mouth. 

He finally dragged out the last of the vine with a wet sounding gag, then chucking it over to the other side of the bathroom. His chest heaving as he recovered from whatever the fuck just happened. 

He looked like utter shit. His skin was sickly looking, pasty and pale, with his eyes red raw from the tears that refused to stop spilling down his cheeks. His t-shirt was saturated with sweat, and he barely had the energy to wipe it off his brow. A moment of gasp filled air passed between us, Keith struggling to calm himself down. 

“You.. won’t tell anyone about this…” he starts quietly, his voice sounding so fragile it could break if he raised it. He took in another drink of air. “Right, Pidge?”

“About the flowers?” I ask, watching petals float up as Keith re-positions himself. He nods, his usually cool expression completely crumbling as he considers what to say next. It was almost unnerving seeing him like this. His composure in tatters. I’d seen him loose it once before, after a battle didn’t turn in our favour, but this… this was far more terrifying. He bites his lip, his eyes searching for something that I can’t see. It takes him a moment to find his voice again, which cracks immediately on him using it again.

“It’s Hanahaki’s Disease” He begins slowly, refusing to meet my eyes. Not that I have the faintest clue what that is, but I feel like from the way he said it I should know it. Like how you’d expect someone to know the word ‘Flu’ or ‘Cancer’.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

To be honest, I’ve never heard of it. I know, a genius like me that doesn’t know the full directory of earth and space related illnesses. Would it be more reassuring of me to pretend I know or if I just let him explain it to me. I opt for the first. 

“What makes you think that?”

He gestures flatly to the pool of flowers we sit in, giving me an unimpressed look. Oh. Am I still meant to understand? I have a feeling that the flowers are a symptom. But I’ve never heard of anything that actually makes you vomit flowers. Flowers making you vomit from eating them? Yes. But not the other way around. Maybe it was something he ate? I make a mental note to take some flowers for sampling later. He looks down to the ground, wrapping his arms around himself. 

“I didn’t think this was a real thing. I mean, I’ve heard people have it but I didn’t want to think it was happening to me” Keith pauses in thought, the ashen look to his face only exacerbating how sick he really is. How did I not see this before? Now thinking about it, he hasn’t looked well since he came back from his voyage to the other Altean colony. He buries his face in his knees, his voice only getting quieter each time he tries to speak “Maybe it was a mistake to leave”

You could always go back? If you picked up the sickness there their people might have a cure? I’m sure we can ask-“

“No, you don’t understand” Keith looks up, tears swimming in his eyes “It’s done, it’s over. My one chance at this stupid thing and I didn’t see it. You don’t know what this means… do you?”

“I don’t, actually. I’ve never heard of hapenakis before”

Keith’s expression hardens, but the tears make it obvious his emotional walls have been torn down. He shook, whether from being cold or being emotionally vulnerable for the first time? It was hard to say. 

“Lance moved on. That’s all this means” He said firmly, more to himself than to me. I give him a sad smile, before shuffling up over to him. Time to inject some classic Pidge humour to lighten the mood a little.

“If I vomited flowers every time a friend decided to not engage with me anymore, I’d be a fucking florist.”

“He wasn’t my friend” Ouch. Joke not well received. The death glare and the colour flooding back into Keith’s cheeks was enough to tell me I have severely underestimated their connection. I don’t often get it wrong… but this… 

“Were you two together?” I ask, fully expecting a punch to the face for asking such an outlandish question. But no punch came. Instead, I was smacked in the face with silence. He turns to look away from me, burying his head in his hands. Ah… I was right. “For how long?”

“… I don’t want to go into details…”

“So it was serious huh?” This isn’t an awkward conversation at all. Though, I feel like I need to know. Not even for gossip, just so I can understand what on earth goes on behind Lance’s closed door. Hell, I doubt even Shiro knows about this… not that I am going to tell him.

“He was my first everything, so I thought it was serious but…” He groans, a bubble of sickness rushing up his throat and resulting in a small, sticky mess of petals spitted onto the floor. It was gross. “ugh… I dunno. I guess I was away for too long and now he hates my guts”

“You haven’t exactly been nice to him since you’ve come back” I point out. 

This was true. He’s done nothing but pick fights and threaten and insult Lance since he returned. Not exactly the kind of boyfriend Lance would want. To be honest, news of them even being together baffled me. Seriously, after hearing non-stop how much of an arsehole Keith is from Lance I never would have pinned them down to be fuck buddies. You think you know a guy, huh? Then again, looking at how crap Keith looks, it must have been a messy break up and now a messy ‘can’t get over him’. Not that I know anything about relationships and the complex emotions behind them.

“Because I’ve been throwing these up for the last month.” He hit a pile of petals, spraying them into the air and watching them flutter down slowly. He glared at every single one, with a sourness I have never seen fall on his face before. “It’s getting worse. This is the most trouble I’ve ever had with it. I would have choked to death if you hadn’t have come.”  
“Come on now, flowers can’t kill someone. You would have been fine.” I say, but the horrified look Keith has thrown me seems to say otherwise. But there is no way. No way at all. I’ve never heard of anyone having an accident from a disease caused by vomiting flowers. There was just no way. “…You can’t be serious.”

“Pidge… That’s the problem with these flowers, with Lance… Pidge if I can’t get him to love me again…” He hesitated for a moment, then grabbed at my hands, holding them tightly. He stared into my eyes, not as the leader of Voltron, but as a frightened, heartbroken kid. The grip on my hands intensified, the tears that had dried now causing him to tip over the edge, with more flooding down his cheeks. 

“I’m going to die”


End file.
